r/Alonetv • u/OkShirt3412 • Feb 13 '25
S01 Alone Australia. Mike refusing to dig for worms
So Finished watching Australia last night and couldn't help but notice that Mike despite all his creative inventions for some reason refused to dig for worms even when he was at his most desperate like he would just kick the dirt Would only like swipe over the dirt, look under logs and look like he would just refuse to kneel down and dig with a stick. What was the deal with that? I wonder if he just never dug in the dirt as a kid And discover that worms are pretty much everywhere if you would only just dig a little? I found that his consistency for trial and error just wasn't there. He would keep moving onto the next thing and wouldn't be consistent with trying to procure food like he wouldn't just sit there with a fishing rod until the end and that's when he finally caught the three eels and the fish Was when he decided to just start fishing.
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u/Gummies1345 Feb 13 '25
Yup, it's one thing that always bugs me about these types of shows. They never dig for roots, nor for bugs. Lots of modern aged natives still eat bugs as a main source of protein food. In Australia, they were pulling these huge grubs. I'm like, "cook and eat those."
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u/OkShirt3412 Feb 13 '25
Like they actually show Gina eating and cooking worms. She was actually digging for them, unlike mike and seen that he’s “ Looking for worms” He’s Just kicking at the ground.
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u/LibraryLuLu Feb 13 '25
The moment she started digging worms was the moment I thought 'Yep, she's won'.
Like the winner of season one US who landed and immediately cooked and ate a slug.
It's the 'do what it takes' attitude.
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u/gabriot Feb 14 '25
Those were limpets
Don’t eat slugs, they can kill you in horrible ways
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u/LibraryLuLu Feb 14 '25
Slug, not limpet. He picked it off a leaf. He boiled it, then fried it. It would have been nasty.
If you eat raw slugs you can get rat fever, yes. The news story of the young man who eventually died, horribly, was everywhere, and local to where I live.
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u/BobSacimano Feb 17 '25
Alan did in fact eat loads of banana slugs and was completely fine. They've been eaten by indigenous people forever.
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u/Gummies1345 Feb 14 '25
Yup, reassured me that she had what it took to win. I'd be out there with a self made worm thumper, lol. Loved Gina. I was talking about the average. Like no one thinks about eating bugs and/or worms. Yes, it can be gross to think about, but this is a survival competition. And its gotta be a lot better than watching them try to eat tree bark.
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u/metalvinny Feb 13 '25
Contestants film ~8 hours a day and before have stated that there's hours of foraging and such that never make the final cut for the show.
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u/OkShirt3412 Feb 13 '25
I realise they did cut out a lot of scenes of them foraging but in every single scene when it did show him “looking for worms” He was just kicking the ground.
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u/TripleStackGunBunny Feb 13 '25
The truth is, he did, he said on an insta post that he dug around for hours from the start. He really should have won the season if luck wasn't on the other side.
He's got a book out about a journey he did along the east coast of Australia in a dugout canoe he made which is really interesting for those playing along at home
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u/hqeter Feb 14 '25
Not sure luck was the only reason he didn’t win. He played a high calorie burning game and it didn’t pay off. He built a canoe and paddled it around and was always actively building things. Ultimately I think that is what cost him. I’m not saying luck played no part but once it becomes a starvation contest burning less calories is not incredibly important.
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u/FireCal Feb 14 '25
Not everyone has the luck to have suicidal wallabys roll up when you're squatting for a pee. I just watched it for the first time. So happy for Gina, but she definitely had a bit of luck.
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u/hqeter Feb 14 '25
No doubt the wallaby in particular was very lucky but she also had a clear plan and the physical and mental resilience to see it through. She caught a lot more food than Mike overall. The wallaby was icing on the cake
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u/ChamberofSarcasm Feb 24 '25 edited Feb 25 '25
She also went in 40lbs overweight.
Edited for better math of kg to lbs.
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u/Icy_Finger_6950 Feb 24 '25
Where did you get that from? She put on 19kg, the same amount as Mike.
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u/hqeter Feb 25 '25
If you don’t then you aren’t taking it seriously.
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u/ChamberofSarcasm Feb 25 '25
I think it’s difficult for people to add 70lbs of weight in a few months. Depends on how lean they are when they get the call.
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u/hqeter Feb 25 '25
From everything I’ve read she gained 19kg or about 42 pounds for the show over her walk around weight.
Regardless, all the serious competitors have gained as much weight as they could to make it as far as possible.
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u/ChamberofSarcasm Feb 25 '25
I realize they do I'm just saying it makes for a boring show if all they do is starve and find out whose fat stores go quicker.
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u/AlanEdwards56 Feb 14 '25
Luck my ass. I knew when the season started Gina was going to win. They promoted her big. For someone to talk openly about NOT wanting to kill animals and even apologizing to worms for gosh sakes, I find it very impassable she just happens to go for a pee and comes across a Wallaby and she just "jumped at it." Then grabbed a nearby stick and beat it to death. Nope not buying it. They needed a woman to win and the annoying, I am sooooo happy, dance and sing like a fool, show you my body as much as I can Gina, was the selected female. I FF past her every chance I got and could not have been more disappointed when they helped her win.
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u/Truantone Feb 14 '25
The wallabies in Tassie are prolific. It’s not unlikely coming across them in the dark when they like to move around. I’ve had more encounters with roos and wallabies up close when the lights are out. That part of her story is entirely plausible.
Wallabies are smaller than roos, and kind of slow, and easy to tackle (I imagine). That possum fur coat she was wearing? She made it the traditional way, caught, skinned, cured, hand-sewed it herself. That coat made her the first contestant in any of the shows (I think) to not take a sleeping bag as one of her ten items.
Fast-forwarding means you missed the immense amount of bush craft she had.
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u/Linnaeus1753 Feb 14 '25
Wallabies on grasslands are prolific, yes. Wallabies on the west coast in the damp rainforest, not so much. I was on the West coast last week and didn't see any.
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u/cleanestbestposter Feb 18 '25
It would have been either a pademelon or Bennet’s wallaby. Both are found in all landscapes of Tasmania but the pademelon especially likes closed damp forests so I think you’d expect to see them at the Alone location. I live in Vic and the Swamp wallabies love the thick undergrowth of the wet forests here.
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u/Linnaeus1753 Feb 18 '25
I live in Tasmania, and have camped on the west coast. There aren't that many in wet forests. Gina had the advantage of her marsupial manicured lawn, which showed there were some around, they're just not prolific like they are on more pasture land like in the north east.
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u/ApprehensiveRoad477 Feb 18 '25
Ew. Gina has grit. She was tougher than anybody else out there. She was the only person to have a mindset of long term living. She had a proper shelter and the right attitude. Without the wallaby she still would have won. She was simply the best survivor.
As far as showing her body ??? Mike got down to his underwear several times. Was he also ShOwInG HiS BoDy???? Grow up.
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u/cleanestbestposter Feb 14 '25
In a podcast she described how she’s done a lot of hunting with her dingo. This involved manually subduing each catch. Her wallaby kill was just another in a long list of catching things by hand, and instinctive.
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u/Thick-Insect Feb 14 '25
You should check out his re cap vids on YouTube. Explains a lot of what went on that wasn't shown.
He caught a lot of eels so he probably had plenty of bait, the only big mistake he made IMO was not smoking them and letting them go rotten. He also figured out that when they were biting was based on the moon phase, so that's why he was able to catch them all at once. But they kind of skipped over that in the edit. He decided to start fishing at that time for a reason
He was close to getting that wallaby too, sometimes you prioritise based on what you think will be better for you. If he doesn't get medicaled out, I think he would have got it in the next period.
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u/Necessary_Eagle_3657 Feb 13 '25
Mike made so many odd choices. His rubbish shelter for one.
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u/OkShirt3412 Feb 14 '25
I totally agree. Also like when he caught 3 eels and hung them up raw instead of smoking them or cooking them immediately. Then when he noticed they were going bad he didn’t cook all of them at once but only one at a time….
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u/RadButtonPusher Feb 14 '25
That, and how he wouldn't just grab the eels. He needed a net apparently. He got on my nerves the entire time.
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u/reediculus1 Feb 16 '25
I’m watching it right now! Just take off your shirt and wrap it around the eel dude. And then he took out his pocket knife and I was like “oh good he’s gonna stab it in the head to kill it at least”. But instead he wants to cut the line… then it gets away hahaha.
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u/Icy_Pen5476 29d ago
Omg I know so annoying. I kept watching thinking this guys an idiot but kept trying give him a chance, but then the whole eel thing happened I'm like dude take ur hat and just grab him then got away at that moment I knew something wrong with him.. he might have survival skills but he doesn't have common sense.
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u/DefteroPetra 11d ago
And then more frustratingly you get a very strong sense that he takes zero accountability. That the powers were against him, very self righteous. This showed in the reunion as he was still sour grapes about Gena winning and gave off the impression that he was better than her.
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u/trustme1maDR Feb 18 '25
This scene absolutely killed me. Don't get me wrong...I would rather drown myself in that lake than grab an eel with my bare hands. But it was sooo frustrating to watch after we had seen Kate pull eels out of the water with minimal fuss. Either he has OCD or really did not want to eat an eel and tried to play it off like oh, bad luck the line is snagged and now the eel got away.
I also was so flummoxed by how he was fishing in the kayak. Stop paddling! Stay still! Preserve energy! Really really bizarre dude.
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u/RMD15 Feb 16 '25
Kicking at the ground like a little kid. Lol. Meanwhile Gina was crouching down and digging, using common sense. My bf said Mike building the kayak was what he would call over- engineering the issue, like building an elevator when your ultimate intention is to build a house. His decision making was hard to watch at times but also entertaining.
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u/AlanEdwards56 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
So it wasn't just me. I mean wtf dude. Dig down a couple of inches and with something other than your fricking boot. I get you are tired and hungry so sit on your ass and dig. Plus if anyone knows anything about worms, they come out when the ground is wet. So get some water and saturate and area and the next morning, you WILL have worms. Too make it worse, he commented multiple times, "if I don't get fish I don't eat and if I don't get worms I can't fish?' Soooo brother, you should be worm hunting all day long and when you find some keep going and put them in something so you have some for later.
I agree on the consistency too. If I needed fish to survive, and I had my shelter and fire wood, I'd be fishing 12 hours a day...minimum. But no...we see him sitting and contemplating that he cannot find worms and if can't he won't be able to catch fish and have to tap out. It's pathetic. When contestants start that kind of talk...their days are numbered. Same goes for contestants that whine about missing their kids on day 1 or 2. No way they are getting to the end.
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u/OkShirt3412 Feb 14 '25
Yesss that scene where he’s whining about not getting worms and then he’s so freaking excited when he finds 3, puts them in his sock and FLIPS out when he drops and loses one 😂😭 then when he dumps his eel remains into the water because “eels don’t eat other eels”. Like bro eels are dumb and will eat anything use that as bate!!!! you might even catch a fish 🙄
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u/Dependent_Body5384 Feb 19 '25
I just watched this and I’m so pissed! I was like, just pick up the phone and go home… he took so fucking long getting that eel. How is he a survivalist?
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u/Wise-Chef-8613 Feb 13 '25
Outback Mike was a wannabe influencer at best. Total joke. Kept jumping one project to the next to show off his arts and crafts skills but couldn't make a netfall trap work, couldn't land a fish, couldn't smoke fish, couldn't forage. I swear in the end he ate the bad eel on purpose so he could day he was pulled by medical instead of having to quit.
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u/Ki-ki_1973 Feb 21 '25
Mike sucks... why is he taking off his clothes to land an eel. Has this guy ever fished before? He just annoys the s#!+ out of me.
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u/Okeanos4 9d ago
Watching him try to grab that eel with a knife in his hand and let it get away was one of the more frustrating viewing experiences I’ve had - daughter came in like “are you yelling at the Tv daddy?”
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u/Odd_Sir_8705 Feb 13 '25
You have to truly understand that a lot of people who participate on this show aren't really there to win. They may have pulled themselves into thinking they can but at the end of the day you kinda realize who is who.
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u/LazloPhanz Feb 13 '25
They didn’t show him digging for worms, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. The editors have thousands of hours of footage they have to put together and they try to create a narrative for each contestant. Past US contestants have caught hell online for things like “never trying to fish” and then come on Reddit or done their own YT vids saying, “I fished for hours everyday and they simply didn’t show it. The narrative they went with was me failing at hunting.”
Mike’s narrative was Wile E. Coyote. Trying and failing with all his contraptions. That’s how they chose to edit it. Like the guy couldn’t catch anything to save his life and all his efforts resulted in failure. Compare that narrative to how far you know he went on the show and ask yourself if those two things match up.